Oct-2016
Becoming a PADI Rescue Diver
Diving is addicting
Over the last few years diving has become my thing. It started in 2006 in Jamaica, where I did a discovery dive, just me and the dive instructor. He took me by the hand and introduced me to the glory of diving. A few years later, in 2014, I walked passed a dive center in Panama and decided to find out why it kept on feeling so appealing to me. I became a PADI Open Water diver right there (step 1).
A month later I continued improving my diving skills in Honduras to become a PADI advanced diver (step 2). The Utila island gave me excess to a deeper underwater world up to 30 meters. I learned to control my buoyancy and fix my own dive gear. I made my first night dive and saw an octopus and a turtle from up close in the sea. Everything keeps on becoming more and more interesting.
A common cuttlefish
A Mediterranean moray sticking his head out of a rock
Last year I decided I wanted to become a PADI dive master. I spent time in Karpathos working as a tour guide while in my free time I got to dive a lot. Being more confident of my own skills I decided I was ready to get professional. My boyfriend, mister Viking, as well. We were going for this diving journey together. Unfortunately we did not have enough free time last year, so we had to wait. This summer however, we did have enough time to get into step 3 and that is becoming a rescue diver.
A common Octopus during a night dive
a sleeping blue-barred parrotfish
Becoming a Rescue Diver
Before being able to start the rescue diver course we needed to have the Emergency First Responder course completed. It teaches you how to help with secondary and first aid in case of an emergency. In the middle of the summer we found some time to do the EFR and rescue diver course. A girl from Crete, my boyfriend and I got to do this together with our instructor Christine from the Karpathos Diving Center. She got all her diving experience in Thailand and was a good teacher, who also made the course even more fun than it already was. First she told us to do the PADI E-learning, which is done on a laptop at home. Mister Viking and I spent a couple of days studying at home on our laptops until we completed all the chapters, finished the online course and were ready for our lessons in the water.
Diver, diver, are you okay?
We soon planned 2 mornings of skill practicing at the shallow waters of Amoopi in Karpathos. We ran through a set of skills like assisting a panicked and tired diver. A panicked diver may try to use you as a flotation device and we needed to learn how to take control in case this happens. The dive center owner turned out to act like an unconscious diver laying on the ocean floor and we needed to bring him safely to the surface.
Another skill we practiced was giving rescue breathes on the surface after establishing buoyancy and ditching all the gear from the diver and yourself while doing so. I think I’ll never forget the counting. “One-one thousand, Two-one thousand” until you reached 5 to give a rescue breath and made sure you made 2 rescue breaths to start of with. Rescuing your classmates and random people from the dive center and playing the victim was a lot of fun!
A greater slipper lobster during a night dive
A red starfish
I never thought that tossing a rescue buoy far away into the water as a flotation device would be that hard and I actually overestimated dragging someone out of the water. Doing an underwater search for someone who’s missing, or our instructor’s notebook tied to a weight in our case, was quite a hard task too. After doing an expanding square search we found the instructor’s notebook lying near a rock. We saved the weight and the notebook. After having done all these and several other skills we became rescue divers.
Now we are ready for our Dive Master course (step 4), which we are looking forward to and want to do somewhere in Latin America. In the next few weeks we’ll walk into dive centers in Mexico and possibly surrounding countries to find our instructor and where it feels best.
Mister Viking and I
A devil firefish, also known as lionfish
Have you ever been diving? Would you like to become certified?
All the pictures are taken by me during several dives in Karpathos with a GoPro Hero3 Black.
A special thanks to the Karpathos Diving Center!
About Renate Rigters
Ever since I left my home country I felt at home at any other place I went to. I enjoy getting to know more cultures by talking to strangers and hearing their philosophy about life. Speaking with gestures when you can not find a shared language, finding places only the locals go to and learn about their customs and values. Hanging out with local people makes me happy. The experience of every new place is a step out of your comfort zone where I like to wander around until it feels like a second home.
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